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Does Recovery From Borderline Personality Disorder Mean Recovering Lost Relationships?
Moving On
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Does recovery from Borderline Personality Disorder mean reconnecting with people that had to leave to take care of themselves? In my experience the answer is no. It is important to grieve, let go and move on and to learn from past failed interpersonal dynamics so that they are not repeated in the future. What was then, was then. This is now. There are new people to meet, new relationships to forge and as someone who recovered from BPD, I have my - a found, known, and emotionally mature authentic self to fall back on in the meantime in ways that I didn't have when I had BPD.

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I am asked often, as a Life Coach by loved ones of those with BPD as they grapple with leaving or going no contact, "What if I end the relationship and then he or she gets help and becomes this wonderful person?" This question can often keep those on the other side of BPD stuck in toxic unhealthy and/or abusive situations that erode their own sense of self. I address this what-if and what it means for non borderlines in my audio program, Breaking Free From The BPD Maze - Recovery For Non Borderlines Perhaps both those who have BPD and those who love or care about them, both need to learn that people sometimes come into our lives to teach us things and that there is no reason beyond the lessons the painful lessons to remain connected or to be dancing the dance of a toxic relating that is often enmeshed and codependent relating on the part of both the borderline and the non borderline.

A person with BPD wrote to me and asked:

"I was just wondering if, when you got cured of BPD, or at least were well on the way to recovery, whether you were able to heal any of the relationships that you had lost because of BPD issues? I have so many of those relationships, people that I miss and wish were back in my life. And if you did, I'd be interested in knowing how you went about doing that. Thanks a lot."

Let me begin by saying that I am sure that there is no rule about this. I am sure that some people may be able to go back, and or want to go back to past relationships and try again, whether those relationships are with family, friends, or past love interests. This has not been my experience, nor is it a desire of mine anymore.

There was a time, when I would have answered this question differently than I will today. Not only did I have to recover from BPD to understand what I am about to share but I needed a few more years of just living fully-aware of myself and in relationship to myself and in healthier relationships with others to know what my answer to this question is. My answer is, no. I could only heal myself. I could not heal a relationship with anyone who either didn't want to heal it or couldn't heal anything because they still need to heal themselves. There is also the reality that even after I recovered from BPD, it didn't change or take back the damage done and the pain caused and the heartache that I put others through. Sometimes there is just too much damage and pain to overcome.

Of course I share this answer after having tried in a couple of places to re-establish relationship to a family member and a friendship with an my first ex-lover.

In the case of the family member, my mother, it became painfully obvious to me that she and I had not had a relationship (certainly not one with any health in it) in my entire life. Okay, well, there I was healed, better, etc. so I thought well, I could try. In my trying it became apparent to me that the reasons why we had never had a relationship had much more to do with her than I. I had changed tons. My mother has not changed much at all. She still has very active BPD. What that meant was that there still wasn't any common ground from which to work. In my recovery from BPD, one of the greatest gifts has been to come to understand that with most relationships, like childhood neighbourhoods, you really can't go back. If you do go back, so much has changed. Life has a way of moving on without you and trying to go back when so much has changed, not the least of which is me and how I relate to others hasn't worked out for me. I have found too that since I have changed so much, grown so much and have boundaries and a healthy relational style now that truthfully there isn't a relationship from my past that it would serve me well to try to go back to. I have said my share of "I'm sorry's" to those that I have hurt. I have written some letters too. But that's about taking personal responsibility and was done without any desire or expectation to reconnect. I did not communicate to anyone who had set a firm boundary with me of not wanting to hear from me again.

I am a different person now. I have different wants and needs. Many of the people that I knew when I had BPD were also not well in their own ways. I have found it best, for me, in my life, to move on and to continue to meet and get to know healthier people.

I did reach back one more time with an ex-lover of mine. I had hurt this person a lot and I did feel very sorry about that. I wanted her to know that. I tried to relate to her in the present as the person that I am today. She was not in a place with her own issues that she could really appreciate this or meet me half way. She was still more in the past with who I was and her own issues. I have also since realized that my wanting to reach back to say I was sorry was very valuable. My wanting to reach back to validate her pain and experience was very valuable. Even though I sat and listened to her absent any judgment or defense of myself, I would later realize that my reaching back was not as much for her as I thought it was - it was more for me. And what was it that I so wanted? I had no clue. Only in retrospect do I know what it was I was seeking. I thought I needed her forgiveness. I wanted her forgiveness. It was not really something that she could give. What this experience taught me was that it was I who really needed to forgive myself. I have since worked on that and been able to forgive myself for those years in my life and for the behaviour, abuse, and pain that I caused both her and myself. Having forgiven myself I feel absolutely no desire or need to have her be a part of my life anymore.

Disorders - Borderline Personality Disorder